


Someday, Maybe

by roadsoftrial



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Anxiety, Established Relationship, F/M, Light Angst, M/M, Polyamory, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 00:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17314952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadsoftrial/pseuds/roadsoftrial
Summary: It’s easy to forget their words, always so right, always so rational, always so warm and hopeful, when they’re not around. Easy to forget, easy to replace with his own, far less encouraging, far less optimistic. It’s too easy to see how wide the gap between him and them is, when he’s left alone with his thoughts for a bit too long.(In which Ryuji struggles to accept that he's good enough for two people who seem way too good for him.)





	Someday, Maybe

_They’re going to leave you behind._

The voice echoes in the back of Ryuji’s mind, never quite gone for good, never quiet for long enough. It’s not a voice he recognises (but it’s a voice he knows all too well), and they’re not words that have ever been addressed to him (never to his face, at least), yet they always come back before long, always a touch louder, always a touch more convincing.

‘They’re not,’ he whispers to no one in particular, but he still closes his textbook and shoves it at the far end of his desk, a bit more forceful than he’d intended, because it’s so much easier to do when neither Makoto nor Akira is around to raise an eyebrow at him. His final is tomorrow, but his heart isn’t in it. It’s been hard to find the time to reach out, about his school work or otherwise, even though he’s never needed it more than he does now.

He understands, logically, that things can’t stay the same forever. Makoto is in college now, and probably has more pressing matters than the slow declining of her high school boyfriend’s grades, and Akira is already giving him all the attention he can provide (more than he deserves, he’d argue), so Ryuji can’t bring himself to ask for more, no matter how badly he needs it.

It’s easy to forget their words, always so right, always so rational, always so warm and hopeful, when they’re not around. Easy to forget, easy to replace with his own, far less encouraging, far less optimistic. It’s too easy to see how wide the gap between him and them is, when he’s left alone with his thoughts for a bit too long.

He knows comparison only leads to heartache, but he can’t help himself, sometimes. He can’t help trying to stand as high and proud as the two people he cares about most in the world, because it never takes him too long to realise they are only within his reach when they crouch to grab his hands, always pulling him up like the extra weight that it so often feels like he is.

He doesn’t have Akira’s strength, and he certainly doesn’t have Makoto’s wits. He has words, like knifes, not sharp enough to kill, but always pointed at his own heart.

‘It’s not that self-deprecation is a bad thing, Ryuji,’ he remembers Makoto telling him at the end of a bad night, with his head on her lap, with her fingers in his hair, ‘but it’s different for you, because you start to believe what you say.’

It had stuck with him, somehow. Because he remembers how he’d believed her, then. How the warmth of her palm against his cheek, the soft press of her strawberry-flavoured kiss on his chapped lips, had made it seem like all of it was true, like he belonged at her and Akira’s side, like none of this was a sick, delightful dream he could wake from any minutes. On better days, the memory is enough to pull him out of his funk, to make him sit up straight, get himself a cup of tea with a drop of honey and try to get some sort of work done until it’s time for bed. On worse days, it’s easier said than done. On worse days, he wallows in his inadequacy until he grows too angry, too bitter at all the shitty cards he’s been dealt, with distrust and broken bones and an everyday life that seems to be going so fast, too fast, a pace even he can’t outrun, even he can’t keep up with.

It doesn’t come as easily to him as it does to Makoto and Akira. They aren’t like him. They don’t say it, but it’s too obvious, too obnoxious to be ignored. He isn’t in the same league as they are. They’re not even playing the same game, at times, it feels. They’re a perfect match, in a way. Smart and strong, with qualities that fill in the other’s flaws in the same way that their hands complete the hollow of each other’s back, always so in synch that a single glance between them is worth a thousand words. They’re a perfect match, and that makes it so much harder for Ryuji to believe it, when they say they’re all the happier from having him at their side, that they’re ok with him imposing on their alone time, _want_ him to, even, that they wouldn’t prefer to move forward without the burden Ryuji sees when he looks in the mirror.

Somehow, they love him. Somehow, they still want him. Somehow, they kiss him, and hold his hand, and spray around _I love you’s_ like a flowery perfume on their wrists. On better days, Ryuji finds comfort in that knowledge, as unbelievable, as almost too good as it seems to be. On worse days, all he can believe is how unbelievable it really is, after all, too good, and certainly not true. He talks himself into a hole that’s too deep to climb out of. _It’s different for you, because you start to believe what you say,_ the voice echoes in his head, but they aren’t covered in the comforting sheen of Makoto’s lilac blossom voice anymore.

_For you it’s different, because you start to believe what you say, and only idiots believe their own lies. Are you an idiot, Ryuji?_

He’s not sure what hurts more: the fact that the voice in his head is Makoto’s, that he can imagine her, clear as day, saying those words she’s never said, with a malice in her eyes that she’s never, not even once, not even when they didn’t know each other nor any better, used against him; or the fact that he knows he’s making it all up, but accepts it regardless, like it’s all he’s ever really deserved.

He’s an idiot. Nothing but an idiot, who can’t keep up, who can’t grow and be better for the sake of the two people he loves more than he’s ever loved anyone before, himself included. He’s an idiot who can’t remember algebra formulas or hold a basic English conversation, or explain in three pages or more the relevance of symbolism in Heian period literature. He’s an idiot with bleached hair and ripped pants, and bad grades and a too loud voice, but no quick wit to make up for it.

All he knows is how to run, but it’s a race he can never win. Maybe he’s never even been eligible at all.

He has nothing to show for himself. Nothing to offer.

They’re going to leave him behind.

Why wouldn’t they?

‘I have nothing to offer,’ he whispers to no one in particular, and he feels the tightness in his throat and the sting in his eyelids, but he already feels pathetic enough without allowing his body to acknowledge it, too.

They’re going to leave him behind, and he can’t do a think about it, and he certainly can’t talk to them about it, because if they weren’t already thinking it, then it’ll plant a seed that will grow and grow each time he disappoints, and he may be self-destructive, but he’d rather fall apart from his own hand than wait for them to deliver the final blow.

‘You can talk to us, big cat,’ he remembers Akira’s voice, from the last time Ryuji had felt this way, soft and low and entirely too prudent, as if he’d been holding him by the tip of his fingers, a fragile thing that’s too feisty to allow a safe grip, ‘when you’re not feeling well.’

_And say what?_

There’s nothing he can say they don’t already know, and nothing they can say that will shake his unease. He knows, because they’ve already said everything he could’ve possibly needed to hear. Yet here he is, still.

He knows what they say is true, objectively. But his memory has the funny ability to scramble things up at will, to make up eyerolls and huffs that never were, to remember grins and quiet chuckles that were initially shared with him, and aim them _at_ him instead. He knows it isn’t the truth, objectively, but he makes a damn potent job of talking himself to the edge of that cliff regardless.

It shouldn’t be this hard, being in love. It shouldn’t be this hard to show all of himself to the two people who love him back, fully, unquestionably, more than he ever thought possible. Because they do love him, and they do remind him often, because they know him well enough by now to know what he needs and how he needs it. He shouldn’t doubt their sincerity, shouldn’t let himself settle for the worst case scenario as a default.

But as with most things in his life, it’s easier said than done.

He presses his face against the cold wooden desk, presses it hard enough to hurt, hard enough to externalize the restlessness, if only for a while.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, along with the custom notification sound he set up for Akira’s number, and he has half a mind to leave it be, because he’d rather not talk to him in this state, because it might make things worse in the long run, because the simple knowledge that Akira is thinking of him (or remembers him, when Ryuji lets himself sink that low) always acts like an instant balm to his ills, but it’s never quite enough to mend the gash completely.

Ryuji has a knack for making things worse in the long run.

He picks it up after three long breaths, and he shouldn’t be this anxious to see what Akira has to say, but on days like this, it overpowers everything good and rational in him.

Akira [6:42 PM] _Meeting Makoto at school and headed to the diner for some last ditch cramming. You in?_

He wants to respond immediately, wants to say yes, wants to see the two of them, and talk to them, even if their faces will be buried in their books, even if there won’t be much to talk about other than quick explanations and quizzes and vocabulary drills.

He wants to see them, he truly does, and more than anything, he wants to chase away the deafening thought that this is a pity invite only extended to him because it’s been a while and they need to keep up the pretense. He wants it to stop, because Akira and Makoto deserve better than the ill intentions he gives them, because they deserve better than this coiling bitterness and resentment in the pit of Ryuji’s stomach that he created all on his own.

Ryuji [6:45 PM] _I think I’ll stay in, thanks._

It takes the length of a single exhale for his phone to start ringing, and for a text to come in seconds after.

They’re onto him.

He’s not even good at pretending. He can add it to the list, he supposes.

He can’t bring himself to look at the text, can’t bring himself to answer the phone, because he knows his resolve isn’t that strong, knows that he will crack the second he hears the first few drops of worry in Akira’s voice, the second he reads Makoto’s text, asking him what’s wrong in between their favourite pet name and a blue heart emoji. He can’t bring himself to be thankful that they’re so quick to respond, because the wish that there was nothing to respond to is even stronger. He wishes there was nothing to respond to, wishes that he were able say that he’s fine, and sound like he is, without giving away that he’s lying through his teeth.

Still, they don’t waste any time.

It takes twenty minutes for the doorbell to resonate through the apartment, 30 seconds for the sound of the key Ryuji has given them eons ago to rattle in the lock, and all of five seconds for Akira to burst into his room and zero in on him, to tackle him onto his bed with both arms around Ryuji’s neck. It takes Ryuji less than a second to burst into embarrassed, liberating tears as soon as he feels the warmth of Akira’s body against his, and for Akira to wipe them away with a reassuringly steady thumb. It takes ten seconds of blurred vision for Makoto to appear before his eyes, for her to drop the plastic bag filled with their favourite snacks onto the floor, to cradle the side of Ryuji’s face with both hands, to press cherry kisses to his forehead and cheeks, brushing over his closed eyelids along the way, and onto his chapped lips, damp from the tears. It takes three full minutes of unwavering hands holding onto him like they’ll never let go, for Ryuji to settle down at last, for him to catch his breath and let his thoughts fall back into place, for him to realise that it’s fine, that this is fine, that they’re fine, that he’s fine.

He’s fine.

_They’re going to leave you behind._

_They’re going to leave you behind._

_They’re going to leave you behind._

 

 

Someday, maybe.

But not today.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and kudos are, as always, wildly appreciated ♥
> 
> (come hang out on [tumblr](http://roadsoftrial.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/RoadsOfTrial)!)


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